CNN —
Anti-tourism protests have spread across Europe this summer, with demonstrations taking place in the Netherlands, Greece and, of course, Spain.
In early July, protesters marched through popular tourist sites in the Spanish city of Barcelona, spraying unsuspecting tourists with water pistols and chanting “tourists go home.”
And more recently, thousands of people protested on the Spanish island of Mallorca, with organizers saying the island's tourism model “impoverishes workers and enriches only a few.”
At the heart of the protests is the growing problem of rising rents and house prices that are making home ownership nearly impossible for some residents.
Carlos Ramirez, a teacher in Barcelona in northeastern Spain, said he had been saving for years to buy his first home and earned a “decent” salary funded by government funds.
But prices are soaring in the Catalan capital and Ramirez, 26, fears he will be forced out.
“Everyone I know lives here,” he told CNN, “but the only way to live in Barcelona right now is to share with two, three or four people.”
Like other southern Europeans who live in cities that are also popular summer destinations, Ramirez places much of the blame for rising costs on mass tourism.
“It's becoming harder and harder for locals, especially young people, to have their own place,” he says. “As the years have gone by, there's been more and more tourists.”
Barcelona's mayor, Jaume Corboni, said rents in the city have risen 68% over the past decade, a trend that is similar to other European cities.
For many residents, it's enough now. Some have taken extreme measures to make their voices heard, staging demonstrations and calling for hunger strikes in April to protest against over-tourism in the Spanish Canary Islands.
“You could feel the resentment in the air” when anti-tourism protesters fired water pistols at tourists in central Barcelona on July 6, attracting international attention.
According to Barcelona city council, around 2,800 people took part in the demonstration and he said he was pleased to see so many residents take part.
“A lot of people, a lot of businesses, were warning tourists not to come to Spain because of hostility and so on, and frankly, I think it was effective,” Ramirez said, reflecting on the power of the protests to deter tourists from visiting Spain.
Antje Martins, a sustainable tourism expert at the University of Queensland, said the reputational impact of such protests could influence tourists' travel decisions.
“Barcelona now has a very bad reputation among tourists who don't want to visit because it's scary,” she said.
But Eduardo Santander, CEO of the European Travel Commission, a non-profit group that promotes Europe as a travel destination, suggested incidents such as the Barcelona protest were “isolated” and “do not reflect the overall reality in Spain or Europe.”
In general, Martins doesn't think this is a clash between tourists and residents.
“To me, they're a broader reflection of tourism not being managed sustainably,” she said.
“When you see clashes where residents are rebelling against tourism, I think it reflects residents' frustration that they are not getting any benefits from tourism,” she added.
Ramirez agrees.
“I empathize with their feelings. We are not directly blaming tourists,” he said. “We want to put pressure on the government to change its policies.”
The main problem here isn't personal, Martins said, but structural.
Residents who have been priced out and squeezed out by unsustainable levels of tourism typically earn low wages, and some even work in the tourism industry itself, she added.
Local governments in some European cities are taking drastic measures to curb tourist numbers.
Venetian authorities recently hailed as a success the temporary entrance fees introduced to regulate tourist numbers.
Venice's Mayor Luigi Brugnaro said the new 5-euro ($5.4 million) tourist fee, which began on April 25 and ended on July 14, brought in more than 2.4 million euros ($2.6 million), far exceeding expectations.
Some residents told CNN on the ground that while crowds remain high during the project, they feel like they're less crowded. But others disagree.
Susanna Polloni of the Venice-based Housing Solidarity Network told CNN the tax is “not only unnecessary but also harmful” because it creates the impression in the international community of “Veniceland” where you have to buy an admission ticket.
Polloni added that mass tourism has already forced health services to close, replaced neighborhood shops with souvenir stores and driven up housing prices in Italy's canal cities.
“We are reaching a point of no return,” Polloni said. “We believe that the cry for help from a city that is dying for the profits of the few should be heard by the whole world.”
Despite pushback from some cities, many more across Europe are following suit, with some considering raising taxes on tourists.
Barcelona Mayor Jaume Corboni recently announced that he wants to increase the city's tourist tax for some cruise ship passengers.
Tourists who stay in the city for less than 12 hours typically cause extra congestion at major tourist attractions such as the Sagrada Familia cathedral, the Gothic Quarter's La Rambla pedestrian walkway and Gaudi's hillside park, Park Güell, the city's press office told CNN.
The tourist tax is currently Barcelona's third-largest source of revenue, raising about 100 million euros ($108 million) last year from cruise ship passengers who pay 6.25 euros ($6.80) to enter the city and other visitors staying in hotels and other tourist accommodations.
Corboni also said he wanted to revoke the licences of around 10,000 apartments currently approved for short-term rental, the spokesman said.
Ramirez said it's not just the housing issue that's causing a backlash against tourists, adding that the disrespectful attitude of some people is also a factor.
In Florence, Italy, young women were recently filmed kissing, swaying and rubbing against a statue of Bacchus, the god of wine and sensuality, in what the mayor's office called “imitative sex.”
And in 2023, tourists were accused of damaging a statue in the 16th-century Neptune Fountain in the Piazza della Signoria.
That same year, in another part of Italy, a group of tourists was accused of toppling a priceless statue in a villa.
Ramirez said inappropriate tourist behaviour was also a problem in other parts of Europe, including Barcelona, Mallorca, Magaluf and Benidorm.
“It seems they are doing things here that they can't do at home,” he told CNN. “We feel very insulted.”
Sebastian Zenker, a professor of tourism at Copenhagen Business School, said such incidents have led some cities to launch “demarketing campaigns” aimed at discouraging certain tourists from visiting.
Zenker cited Amsterdam's 2023 “Stay Away” campaign, which ran ads aimed at male tourists aged 18 to 35 warning them about the consequences of anti-social behaviour.
“It was a very strict and strict marketing measure,” he told CNN. “It didn't stop bachelor parties, but it created the perception that the city had changed the rules.”
But efforts to attract more cultural tourists could have unintended consequences, Zenker said.
“If you raise prices and attract more wealthy people, you reduce congestion, but you also increase the problems of inflation and gentrification.”
In Mallorca, many activities aimed at “drinking tourists” have been banned, leading to “insanely high” prices, Zenker said.
Much of the money raised will not be put back into the hands of local communities, he added.
So, what's the solution?
“The aim is to see the money made by and from tourists being invested back into the places and into jobs so people can make a living,” he said.
“This (the protests) will continue until there is balance again.”
CNN's Al Goodman, Jack Guy, Louis Mian, Barbie Ratsa-Nadeau, Jessica Small and Erica Hill contributed to this report.
